A 17th-Century Drawing Book, Kept by One Family for 300 Years, Goes on Display at the Rijksmuseum
A 17th-century sketchbook attributed to Rombout van Uylenburgh — a cousin-by-marriage of Rembrandt — goes on public display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam on 19 August 2026, the first time it has been seen by the public in 91 years.
The Van Eeghen Drawing Book, as it is known, contains 30 full-page biblical scenes, some rendered on blue paper. The Van Eeghen family acquired the book in the 1700s and kept it for over three centuries before donating it to the Rijksmuseum in honour of the late C.P. van Eeghen, the family member who traced the work to Van Uylenburgh's hand. That attribution was first published in 2013 by Erik Löffler of the Netherlands Institute for Art History. Artnet News
Rombout van Uylenburgh was born around 1580 in Leeuwarden, in the north of the Netherlands. He probably moved as a child with his family to Kraków, where King Sigismund III held court. His cousin Saskia van Uylenburgh married Rembrandt van Rijn in 1634 — a family link that places Rombout within the orbit of the Dutch Golden Age's most famous painter, though his own surviving output is vanishingly small. Taco Dibbits, director of the Rijksmuseum, called Uylenburgh "a fascinating artist of whom very little work has survived." Artnet News Rijksmuseum
The book's leather binding carries a Dutch inscription reading "Art book for Reyer Claessoon," referencing a merchant and fellow Mennonite — a member of a Protestant dissenting community prominent in Dutch commerce. Not all 30 drawings are by Van Uylenburgh himself: fifteen are not attributed to his workshop, suggesting the book served as a collaborative or instructional object, passed among hands. Artnet News
What makes the book striking is its condition. The drawings have kept their vivid colours because they have rarely been exposed to light — three centuries in a family collection, closed and shelved, did what museum conservators spend careers trying to achieve. Artnet News Rijksmuseum
The Rijksmuseum's display will bring the drawing book together with other surviving works by Van Uylenburgh, offering visitors a rare chance to see what little remains of an artist whose family circle touched the centre of Dutch art. FAD Magazine
The book goes on view in the Rijksmuseum's print cabinets from 19 August 2026.
